Political career
As a member (1772–1791) of Poland's Commission of National Education (Komisja Edukacji Narodowej) – the world's first ministry of education – he was the initiator of and presided over the Society for Elementary Textbooks (Towarzystwo do Ksiąg Elementarnych, founded in 1775). He presided over the renovation of the Załuski's Library (in 1774). He was involved in the development of numerous projects, such as the history curriculum. In 1781 he reviewed and endorsed Hugo Kołłątaj's work at the Cracow Academy. His involvement with the educational projects earned him a nickname bakałarz (holder of baccalarius degree, teacher). His involvement with the educational reforms lessened only during the era of the Great Sejm (1788–1792), when he became increasingly involved with the wider reform program.
On 29 May 1773, he received the office of Great Clerk (Writer) of Lithuania, a relatively low-ranked position that was seen by some as below the magnates of the Potocki family. He participated in the Partition Sejm of 1773, where he sat on several commissions. Seeing himself in opposition to the king, he refused a seat on the Permanent Council that he was offered in March 1774. The king tried to appease him with the Order of Saint Stanislaus on 14 July that year, but that failed to bring Potocki to his side. Instead, Potocki became, for the next decade and half, one of his chief political critics and opponents; in 1776 he went to Moscow to argue, unsuccessfully, for limiting the power of king and the Russian ambassador, Otto Magnus von Stackelberg. Later that year, his election to the Sejm was disputed, and the king and Stackelberg managed to block his election. In 1778 however, the growing rift between the king and Stackelberg allowed him to take, through political maneuvering, the chairmanship of the Permanent Council Marshal of the Sejm. That year he also became a Knight of the Order of the White Eagle.
In 1779, Potocki joined the freemasonry, and by 1780, he advanced to the head of a freemasonry lodge. He became de facto head of the "Familia", and of anti-royal opposition (succeeding its previous leader, Stanisław Lubomirski, upon his death in 1783). That year also saw the sudden death of his wife. During a trip to Italy and France, in absentia, the influence of the Familia resulted in his appointment to the office of the Court Marshal of Lithuania. He continued to oppose various royal projects at the Sejms of 1784 and 1786. In 1785, he lost some face for his involvement in the Dogrumowa affair, in which the king was falsely accused of an instigation of a poisoning attempt.
Disappointed with Russia's lack of support for any serious reforms in Poland, he shifted to favoring an alliance with the Kingdom of Prussia instead. Although this resulted in the split of the anti-royalist opposition, he was seen as the leader of opposition (the Patriotic Party) when the Great Sejm begun in 1788. After some initial political maneuvering, the issues of a closer relation with Prussia (that would eventually grow into the Polish-Prussian alliance) and a major reform of the government, both of which he was closely involved in, began accelerating in 1789. At first supportive, more of a republican form of government, political reality (such as royal faction victory at the elections of 1790) resulted in his acceptance of a more constitutional monarchy approach. In 1790, through the mediation of Scipione Piattoli, the king and Potocki begun drifting closer together, working on a draft document that would eventually become the 3 May 1791 constitution. Alongside Poniatowski, Kołłątaj and Piattoli, he is seen as one of the major authors of that document. He supported the quasi-coup d'état in which the constitution was passed on 3 May 1791.
On 17 May 1791, he resigned his position in the Commission of National Education to take an appointment (Minister of Police) in the newly created government, the Guard of Laws. From March 1792 he also held the position of Minister of War. During the War in the Defence of the Constitution in 1792, he went on an unsuccessful diplomatic mission to Berlin to request assistance from the Prussian government. On 4 July 1792, a sudden depression made him resign his ministerial positions. A vocal opponent of the Targowica Confederation and likely an author of an anonymous anti-Targowica brochure, he was specifically requested by the Russian government not to be involved in the negotiations; he also refused to join the Targowica Confederation, even after Poniatowski's accession to it.
